Ok, it wasn’t a complete failure
I’d say it was a 70% failure
Let's start from the top
What Ads did I Run?
One campaign on each platform with two videos (creative) each.
Videos are Vertical (9:16) and placement is for mobile friendly
Essentially, the experiment is for mobile users.
Creative #1 → Watch here
Creative #2 → Watch here
Here are the details:
* my bank had blocked the payments half way through which killed the original budgets I had :/
Why run a Video Views Objective Campaign?
In short, I was looking for the cheapest way to maximize traffic
In the past i had run Link click objective campaigns and those are much more expensive, especially if you’re still figuring out your targeting.
I knew it was a long shot going in. I didn’t have high expectations, I was just curious.
Kind of chasing that ‘what if’ thought
These campaign focused solely on mobile users.
Ideal scenario:
User sees Video while at work/out → Bookmarks, or saves link to check later
Reality:
Users saw video → only a few Bookmarked, or saved for later
“bro thats obvious, you should’ve run an ad with Link clicks as the objective”
Wellll…. that gets more expensive, and I just wanted to see if i can find a cheap way to reap benefits from these ads
but I was just scratching my own itch chasing that ‘What if’
it wasn’t all just a random thought though
As you can see, the majority of the traffic usually comes direct.
Meaning someone typed in the URL at some point to get to toolfolio.
And im pretty sure that the Toolfolio showreel pictured above is a driving factor for this.
So I thought that if the videos got people hyped up and showed the url clearly, this would generate a good stream of traffic for a fraction of what it would’ve costed for a link clicks objective campaign
That wasn’t the case 🤡
Why are you so sure those visitors came from the Video?
well lets look at some facts from the past 2 days. (not during ad campaign)
I posted the video again :)
I think it worked…
Posted Oct 28 at 11PM, explaining the peak on the 29th
Here are the Ad Results
Comments
Both Creatives combined,
Meta has an avg $1 (€0.93) per 1000 people reach (CPM)
X has an avg of $0.88 (€0.82) per 1000 people Reach (CPM)
In terms of Video Views
Meta: Ad #1 outperformed Ad #2
Ad #1–12.1K Views with 24 video Plays at 95% of the video
Ad #2–9.8K Views with 12 Video Plays at 95% of the video
X ads: Ad #2 has a slight, 1.05% higher View rate, than Ad #1
X doesn’t give you % of view time which isn’t great to compare.
@toolfolio on X gained ~40 followers during this period
got 5 spam messages on Facebook
Sooooooo you failed?
Yes & No
I’m not a expert in Ad campaigns. I’ve run a handful of them in the past, some with impressive results, and some, including this one, with not so great results.
No shame in that, its all about persistence.
But generally, ads are a constant A/B test of targeting, creatives, placements etc.
The objective is to setup a campaign that resonates with the targeted audience and placement you choose.
the better you optimize the aforementioned metrics, the cheaper and more effective your campaigns will be.
I also ran a Landscape campaign on X
Creative #1 → Watch here
Creative #2 → Watch here
Similar Targeting Audience with Vertical Campaign
Here are the Ad Results (Landscape)
Comments
Desktop users seem to speed more time watching ads, perhaps because they are bombarded so much on mobile? or maybe because desktop users have more time to spend?
Although not by a lot, my screen recording (ad #2) outperformed the Product video (#1). The more raw the better?
Blows my mind that even with such reach and video views there wasn’t a equally correlated change in traffic
Closing Statement
Well, My experiment failed…. but not completely
Here’s what I learned:
Running ads on X
Mobile is not the best option for my product
Link clicks objective is probably a better option than Video views
learned new things about meta Ad manager
Also, I did gain some followers and increased traffic during 21–25
and regarding ads, I just want you to know ….
